


Then came a baby boy with long eyelashes

by earlgreytea68



Series: Schrodingerverse [4]
Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: COVID, Coronavirus, Father's Day, M/M, Pandemics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:42:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24829282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: Pete's had ten Father's Days, and Patrick's been there for every single one.
Relationships: Patrick Stump/Pete Wentz
Series: Schrodingerverse [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1687264
Comments: 46
Kudos: 117





	Then came a baby boy with long eyelashes

**Author's Note:**

> Tomorrow is Father's Day in the US, so I thought it would be nice to imagine what it looks like in Tennyson's 'verse, in this little slice of Patrick's found family. For those of you celebrating, I hope you have a good day. For those of you for whom tomorrow is going to be painful, I'm thinking of you, and I hope you have the best day you can, too. 
> 
> Thank you to carbon for looking this over. 
> 
> Title from She's My Winona: https://youtu.be/CIolqDC3VFA?t=62

Tennyson is born in July.

By the time Pete experiences his first Father’s Day, he wears the title of _Daddy_ much more lightly than Patrick could ever have imagined. When Pete first explained Tennyson’s pending arrival on the planet, Patrick remembers blinking in astonishment, trying to reconcile the Pete sitting in front of him, who the day before had experimented in seeing which substances might work best at holding together a broken chair leg (mayonnaise was a terrible choice; peanut butter somewhat better), with Patrick’s understanding of fatherhood, of stern and serious men with fretful foreheads worrying about the future.

Patrick knows why he felt so bewildered over the idea of Pete as a father but by the time of Pete’s first Father’s Day, he’s ashamed of it. Honestly, he was ashamed within a week of Tennyson’s birth, and then, when everything fell apart and it was just Pete and Tennyson, well…

On Pete’s first Father’s Day, Patrick shows up at his house early, dressed for the beach, the sunscreen still not quite rubbed into his nose.

Pete answers the door with Tennyson on his hip, what looks like jelly in Tennyson’s flyaway white-gold baby curls, and still in the boxers and t-shirt Patrick knows he slept in. “Hello?” he says curiously. “You look like you are going to enter mortal combat with the sun.” He reaches out his free hand to tap the brim of Patrick’s floppy sunhat.

Tennyson babbles what is doubtless agreement with his father’s assessment, and drools all over the spoon he’s gnawing on. Teething, Patrick knows, because two nights ago Pete called him at four a.m. to say, _Do you think it’s true that you can just give a teething baby whiskey to knock them out? Like, is that child abuse, or can I do it?_

“We’re going to the beach,” Patrick announces.

“You and who?” Pete asks incredulously. “A stranger who’s never met you?”

“No, _us_. You and me and Tennyson.”

“The beach? You hate the beach. You hate sun.”

Patrick gestures to himself. “Mortal combat.”

Pete reaches out to rub the sunscreen into Patrick’s nose. Patrick pretends he doesn’t find that gesture more erotic than anyone else’s hand on his cock. Pete says, “Why are we going to the beach?”

“Because you fucking love the beach. You’re going to bring a volleyball with you or whatever and do shirtless acrobatic things and pick up some chicks.” Patrick shrugs.

Pete is staring at him. “Why am I—” Tennyson expertly pokes Pete in the eye with the spoon. Pete squeezes his eye shut and shifts a squawking Tennyson away from him and says, “Why am I doing any of that?”

“Huh?” says Patrick. “Let me just take him, come here, Shakespeare.” He reaches for Tennyson, who tries to leap for him. Pete would beget some Cirque du Soleil kid.

“Thanks,” says Pete, rubbing at his eye. “We don’t have to do any of that. Come inside and I’ll make you, like, a bagel or something.”

“No, Pete, we have to—” It suddenly occurs to Patrick, when he’s in the middle of wiping jelly off his shirt. “Hang on, you don’t know.”

“Know what?”

“It’s Father’s Day.”

Pete’s eyes widen comically. “Oh, fuck,” he says, “I didn’t buy my father _anything_. _Fuck_. Are you sure? Where’s my phone?” Pete pats at his boxers like his phone might materialize there.

“No,” Patrick says gently. “I mean, yes, I’m sure, but that’s not what I—Wait there for a second.” He turns to carry Tennyson out to the car, where he pulls the card he bought Pete out of the packed and ready beach bag in the trunk. He hands it to Tennyson, who immediately drops the spoon enthusiastically, joyful at this new thing to stick in his mouth. “Don’t do that,” Patrick says, wincing, and tries to coax the envelope away from Tennyson’s mouth.

Tennyson gives him the same stubborn pout Pete gives him whenever he doesn’t get his way and tugs the card back toward him. The kid is fucking _strong_. Pete’s probably got him on some kind of gym regimen.

“Come on,” Patrick says, “we’re giving it to your dad, huh? We’re supposed to be partners in crime, you know, you and me.”

Tennyson tries to rip open the envelope.

Patrick takes it away from him. “Okay, when you get older, we’re _totally_ going to be partners in crime when you get older.”

Tennyson wails angrily and tries to swipe at the card Patrick is now holding away from him, and Pete is gaping from the doorway at the two of them, and Patrick says, “Here. This is for you,” and thrusts the damp and crumpled card at Pete.

Pete stares at it. Patrick’s written _Daddy_ on the front.

Patrick suddenly realizes how that might look. “It’s from Tennyson,” he says hastily.

Pete’s still staring at the card.

Tennyson squirms angrily in Patrick’s arms, upset that Patrick has ignored the proper card ownership, clearly Tennyson believes himself to be King of the Card.

Pete says, “Patrick,” very softly, and turns the card over and over in his hand.

Patrick says, embarrassed, “I mean. It’s just a card.”

Pete hugs him so tightly that Tennyson, stuck between them, shrieks indignantly. But Pete doesn’t let go. He says, “ _Patrick_ ,” his nose in Patrick’s neck.

Patrick says, “Happy Father’s Day.”

***

That was Pete’s first Father’s Day.

Pete’s tenth Father’s Day takes place in the middle of a global pandemic, and Patrick is unsure what to do for it. Patrick doesn’t think of himself as being the most original guy when it comes to gifts, okay? He saves his originality for music, he likes to think. Pete is a dazzling and magical gift-giver and Patrick doesn’t even try to compete. But still, he thinks Pete is always touched by whatever Patrick arranges for Father’s Day. It’s usually some annoyingly athletic outing that Pete is naturally good at because he’s Pete, and Tennyson is naturally good at because he’s also very Pete, and Patrick stands in the hot sun watching them be athletic human beings and tries not to burn and/or sweat too much. But it’s fine, he takes it with good grace, because all year Pete is an excellent father, dedicated and unflagging, and he deserves a day of silliness to do the thing he’d most like to do and hasn’t been doing.

But they’re still trying to stay mostly quarantined, and there isn’t much to do. The beaches freak Patrick out right now, so he doesn’t want to go near them. And he’s not thrilled by the idea of a batting range or a golf course or something, he doesn’t want to have to rent equipment, no matter how well-sanitized. He might be overreacting but, well, that’s Patrick Stump for you. Pete would say Patrick’s never _under_ -worried a day in his life. The global pandemic isn’t curing him of that.

They could order in some of Pete’s favorite foods but they’ve been doing that a lot lately, because they need to have something to look forward to in the relentless sameness of their days. This whole thing, Patrick knows, has been really hard on Pete. Patrick is happy wherever he has a music studio and a Pete and a Tennyson, but Pete needs more, he whirls with pent-up energy, Patrick doesn’t think he’s ever spent so much time in just one place. He’s on social media constantly, which Patrick doesn’t mind because Pete viscerally needs to talk to lots and lots of people and the whole household runs better when he does that. But it’s not really a substitute for being _out_. Pete misses traveling, misses traffic, misses waiting in line for coffee, misses how rude everyone can be, Pete misses _everything_. Patrick listens to him sympathetically, and although he doesn’t really get it, although he can happily spend his time immersed in his music, he knows that Pete is really feeling the weight of how indefinitely this is going to drag, this life where he doesn’t get to _move_ much.

Patrick feels very helpless, the way he usually does these days. He wants to feel useful over Father’s Day, but he’s at a loss.

Tennyson, who grew into his status as partner in crime, is the one who comes up with the idea. “We could go camping.”

“Camping,” Patrick echoes. Patrick does not want to go camping. This means that Pete will probably _love_ this.

“Yeah, like, just drive out to the desert and pitch a tent down. We’ll take Bella with us, she’ll love it. And nobody else’ll be around us. Total social distancing.”

“Is it even legal?” asks Patrick. He has no idea what the rules of _camping_ are. He lived out of the back of a van but he doesn’t think that’s really camping.

Tennyson shrugs. Tennyson has inherited Pete’s _laissez-faire_ attitude toward laws.

Patrick considers. It does seem like an extraordinarily safe idea. Unless they’re killed by a murderer, of course. They could be killed by a murderer.

He says that. “We could be killed.”

“By who?”

“A murderer.”

“Wandering around the desert?” Tennyson is skeptical.

“Where else would a murderer be?”

“I don’t know, where there are _people_ ,” Tennyson suggests.

“Yeah, but if he just waits for the people to show up in the desert, there’d be no one around to hear us scream.”

“We could be murdered here,” Tennyson says comfortingly. “That guy next door totally has a gun.”

The guy next door has a small armory. Patrick’s seen it. It’s terrifying. Upon reflection, camping seems like an excellent idea.

***

That first Father’s Day, Patrick prepared for mortal combat with the sun. Now he prepares for the mortal combat of braving the grocery store. He’s wearing one of the Fall Out Boy masks because it was the only one he could find when he was leaving the house, and it would be extraordinarily embarrassing if anybody recognizes him, but no one seems to, and he buys stuff to make smores and feels like a Boy Scout, all prepared for camping.

He plans to leave for the camping trip after dinner and be back for breakfast. It’s that kind of camping trip.

When he gets back to the house, Tennyson and Pete are in a deep debate over how to rank the Terminator movies. Patrick leaves them to it, stripping out of his contaminated clothes and stepping into the shower. Patrick really likes showering these days. It’s impossible to stumble across news in the shower. It’s a news-free place.

The bathroom door opens and shuts and Patrick pokes his head out of the steam, hoping Pete has not arrived with News.

“Hey, you,” Pete says to him, as if he did not expect Patrick to appear.

“Hey,” Patrick replies, and goes back to his shower; Pete doesn’t look agitated so he doesn’t have News. “What’s up?”

“How was the store?”

“Fine.” Patrick tips his head back under the spray. “If you’re fishing for clues about Father’s Day plans, I am a fortress of secrecy.”

“You wound me,” Pete replies. “Can’t I just come up to talk to you with no ulterior motive?”

“You don’t have an ulterior motive?” Patrick asks. “I was hoping you were undressing.”

Pete laughs as he ducks into the shower, as naked as Patrick was expecting. “Okay, I’ll own up to that ulterior motive. You were just so sexy in your Fall Out Boy mask.”

“Idiot,” Patrick grumbles, as he lets Pete back him against the tile.

“Hey, you,” Pete says again, this time in a whisper, and it could have been directed at Patrick’s penis, since it coincides with his hand making an appearance there.

“Where’s Tennyson?” Patrick asks breathlessly.

“Five hundred words deep into an essay about how wrong all of my movie opinions are,” Pete says, and bites Patrick’s neck, right in _that spot_. “Bet I can make you come before he hits a thousand words.”

“Seven-fifty,” gasps Patrick, his head back against the wall, water sluicing down over his face.

Pete licks it off Patrick’s shoulder. “Go big or go home,” he says, his hand so perfect, so, so perfect.

No matter how many times it happens, Patrick can never stop marveling at how Pete can make _this_ feel so fucking good that Patrick would beg him not to stop, how he can do it so effortlessly, in ten seconds flat, give Patrick one particular look and have Patrick so uncomfortably hard that he would corner him anywhere to get off. He doesn’t know how Pete does it, but he loves him so fucking much for it, like, on top of everything else Patrick loves him for, the fact that he pulls an orgasm out of him in five minutes in their shower also makes the list.

“Oh, fuck, please,” he says, “please, _please_ ,” which always seems to be what he says during sex with Pete.

They’ve never really talked about it but he’s pretty sure Pete doesn’t mind Patrick’s lack of imagination in dirty talk, because Pete just pants into his ear now, his hand gloriously relentless, “I’ve got you, baby, I’ll give it to you, let go.”

Patrick turns his head to blindly capture Pete into a clumsy kiss, biting at his lips.

“There you go, Trick,” Pete murmurs against Patrick’s teeth, and “ _Yes_ ,” hisses Patrick, his fingers digging bruises along Pete’s tattoos, his hips stuttering into stillness as the orgasm crashes over, and Pete, who never needs much if he’s gotten Patrick off first, rubs against Patrick’s thigh, quick and frantic, and Patrick blurs out, “C’mon,” and Pete says fervently, “ _Fuck_ ,” and comes on him.

After it seems quiet in the shower, and Pete’s holding him up, his hands wandering with gentle petting, his lips soft against Patrick’s neck. Patrick kisses the side of his head, whatever he can reach, and lifts a heavy hand to stroke through Pete’s drenched hair. “I love you,” he says.

“That good, huh?” Pete replies.

Patrick is post-coitally undisposed to banter. He says seriously, “I always love you.”

There’s a beat of silence until Pete says, “I know. I always love you, too.”

***

Father’s Day dawns sunny and warm and Patrick studiously does not mention the occasion of the day. Well. Not to Pete. He calls his dad and his stepdad and everyone complains about the state of the world and, itchy with the sense of doom that accompanies all discussions of reality these days, Patrick finishes his calls to go in search of Pete and Tennyson. He finds them in the swimming pool, together with two of their pool chairs and one of their umbrellas.

“We’re doing floatation experiments,” Tennyson explains.

“It’s science,” Pete says. “I’m teaching him science.”

It doesn’t look anything like science. Patrick says nothing. He drops to the side of the pool and sticks his feet in.

This is so unusual an occurrence that Tennyson shrieks, “Patrick’s in the pool!” like Patrick just cannonballed in.

Pete ducks underwater and surfaces next to Patrick. “You okay?” he asks in a low voice, and kisses the side of one chubby knee like even that is beloved.

Patrick scritches his hand through Pete’s chlorine-clogged hair and says, “Let’s get away.”

“Ticket to Hawaii, babe,” Pete says, waggling his eyebrows. “Just say the word.”

“No, I mean it. We’ve got a surprise.” It’s much earlier than he intended to spill this, but he needs _away_. He suddenly understands why Pete gets so frantic cooped up like this. “Tell him, Chaucer.” Patrick gets to his feet. “Let’s get going.” He pads on wet feet into the house, aware of Pete gaping after him, and then Tennyson’s voice enthusiastically explaining the whole plan.

Patrick has the car packed already with the tent and the ingredients for the smores. They’ll stop for something more substantial to eat on the way, he decides. Grab it from a drive-through and eat it at the campsite.

“When did you do all this?” Pete asks from behind him, peeking into the back of the car.

“You get distracted a lot,” Patrick points out, and closes the door and turns. “Ready?”

Pete is still deliciously damp and hastily dressed, and he’s holding a guitar case, which he hands to Patrick. “Tennyson says we’re going camping.”

“That’s the plan.”

“Yeah, we’re not doing that without your guitar,” says Pete. He grins and leans forward to peck a quick kiss to Patrick’s lips. “Camping. I can’t wait.”

***

The drive seems to do Pete good, just the very act of leaving their neighborhood and then the city behind. He turns the radio up loud and puts the windows down and argues good-naturedly with Patrick and Tennyson when they insult his taste, and fresh air pours in around them and Patrick drives them between yellow lines and thinks, _I’d drive through the night to you_.

They stop to pick up In ‘n’ Out and Pete and Tennyson eat messily in the car and then Pete exaggeratedly feeds Patrick while he drives; it’s even more of a mess and Tennyson finds it hilarious. The temperature dips as they wind up into the mountains and Pete talks about camping etiquette and how they need to have a bear box.

“Like you’ve ever camped before in your life,” Patrick remarks.

“I lived out of the back of a van for years, that counts.”

“That doesn’t count.”

“We didn’t shower, that’s more camping than some forms of camping.”

“Don’t brag about that,” Patrick tells him.

“How come I have to take so many showers when you never took showers when you were my age?” Tennyson whines.

“I always took showers when I was your age,” Pete informs him. “I didn’t take showers in my twenties. When you are in your twenties, you can also not take showers.”

“But not if you ever want a girl or boy to like you,” Patrick adds.

“Oh, shut up, true love overcomes basic hygiene.”

Patrick found that to be distressingly true but says, “I might have kissed you much earlier if you hadn’t smelled so disgusting.”

“This is revisionist history,” Pete says loftily.

“Did you take showers in your twenties, Patrick?” Tennyson asks.

“Always,” Patrick answers without hesitation.

“Yeah, because by then we were big deal rock stars with easy access to running water,” says Pete. “Ask Patrick how often he took showers when he was eighteen and nineteen.”

“Oh, look, here’s the campground,” Patrick says loudly.

It really _is_ the campground, though, and it’s lovely. Nicer than Patrick had expected, frankly. He’s so glad they got out of the city. The space expands around them, empty except for trees and the hills rolling away from them in the distance, and Patrick realizes he hasn’t been breathing right for weeks and weeks. Months. Tennyson and Bella race around and Pete calls out, “Yo! Stay where I can see you!” and Tennyson shouts back, “Got it, Dad!” and takes off in a sprint across the clearing.

Pete says to Patrick, “So. Do you know how to set up a tent?”

Patrick blinks at him. “What?”

Pete gestures to the packed tent.

“That’s your tent,” Patrick says. “I found it in the newly organized garage.”

“Your point is?”

“I thought you’d know how to put it up!”

“Dude, I’ve never been camping in my life. You know that. You were just _saying_ that.”

“Yeah, but…I don’t know, I thought you’d set it up in your house at some point or something.”

“That does seem like something I would do,” Pete allows.

They both regard the tent.

Pete says, “We could sleep in the Range Rover.”

“Fuck, yes, we can sleep in the Range Rover,” Patrick agrees.

***

They light a careful fire in the fire pit as the sun sets, made possible by the lighter Pete has brought with him. A happy stroke of luck, as Patrick completely forgot to pack one. They gorge on smores, debating the finer points of how to properly toast a marshmallow, and Tennyson grows giddy on sugar and demands discussions about what they’ll do if a bear comes and whether any of them could outrun a bear.

“If a bear comes, we’re tossing you in its path,” Pete tells him, and then tackles him into a playful headlock.

Tennyson laughs and squirms and Patrick watches them fondly and then says, “Hold still for a picture.”

They pose for him, Tennyson with his tongue out, Pete with his hand caught in Tennyson’s hair, tipping his head closer.

“Let’s tell ghost stories,” Tennyson suggests. “I’ll start.” He tells some story about a serial killer and a severed hand with murderous intentions. Patrick feels vaguely like he may have heard it before, and wonders if all ten-year-olds throughout history just share the same ghost stories with each other.

Pete tells an incredibly creepy story that’s a fucking metaphor for depression, because Pete can’t ever communicate on just one level. When it’s over, Tennyson is transfixed and twitchy.

Patrick announces, “No more ghost stories,” and Tennyson doesn’t argue. It’s grown dark around them, and the woods are loud with noises they’re all unaccustomed to, and it’s spooky enough without adding ghost stories to the atmosphere.

Tennyson says, “Are you going to sing songs for us, Patrick?”

“Yes, please sing songs for us, Patrick,” adds Pete, smiling at him in the fire’s glow.

“ _Please_ ,” says Tennyson for good measure.

It’s not a thing he does very often, just sitting around and playing them music. He’ll play in-progress songs to Pete to get his input but he seldom sits at the piano and just plays. He’s suddenly glad Pete thought to bring the guitar, because Tennyson’s eager eyes make him think he should play for them more often. So Patrick retrieves his guitar and sets it on his lap and tunes it idly, and then plays a song he hasn’t played in years. _Honey is for bees, silly bear. Besides there's jellybeans everywhere…_

He watches Tennyson, who smiles when he recognizes it, who curls up against Pete in a way Patrick hasn’t seen him do in a long time. He’s asleep by the time the song’s over. The forest sounds rush in to fill the space Patrick’s voice had been occupying. Pete strokes his hand over Tennyson’s hair and says softly, “Thanks for that.”

“Good thing you brought the guitar,” Patrick replies.

“No, I mean…thanks for the fact that that song exists,” says Pete, and then he stands up with Tennyson in his arms to settle him in the back of the Range Rover.

***

When Pete’s done settling Tennyson, he comes back to the fire. Patrick is sitting contemplatively on the log, and Pete sits next to him instead of across from him, where he had been. He says, “Look what I have, a surprise of my own,” and waves a joint in front of Patrick’s face.

Patrick chuckles. “Where the hell did you get that?”

Pete sticks it between his lips and says, “It’s a secret.”

“Now I get why you had a lighter with you.”

Pete grins and flourishes the lighter and lights the joint and puffs before passing it to Patrick. “Come on,” he wheedles, “you know you want to.”

“Such peer pressure,” Patrick pretends to be offended, taking it from him.

“Who knows when you’re next singing?” asks Pete heavily. “No need to worry about your voice.”

“Let’s not talk about it,” Patrick says, taking a drag, because he doesn’t want the real world to intrude. They’ve come all this way to pretend the world still works the way it used to.

Pete curls up next to him and takes the joint Patrick passes back to him. He executes a fancy smoke ring, then says, “Remember the first time you smoked and you choked?”

“So did you,” Patrick reminds him.

“Yeah, but you were a cuter choker.”

“There’s something wrong with you,” Patrick says. “I wasn’t a cuter choker.”

“You were cuter at everything. You were always cuter at everything.” Pete passes the joint back and turns to press his nose into Patrick’s neck. “My Schrodinger Patrick,” he mumbles.

“Please, for the love of God, tell me what that means,” says Patrick.

“That’s where I kept you. In a box. In a box where I didn’t have to make a decision about you.”

Patrick feels like Pete always made a million decisions about him, from that very first day when he decided Patrick was a singer. He watches the smoke he exhales dissipate into the sky, and then he says, “What decision?”

“The decision of how fucking much I loved you,” Pete answers. “The decision of _how_ I loved you. I’m sorry, Patrick.” Pete sounds wrecked against him.

Patrick is bewildered. He blames the weed. “What are you apologizing for?”

“I’m sorry it took me so long to let you out of the box. I’m sorry it took me so long to make a decision. I’m sorry I let you hover in that in-between world so long. I’m so sorry, I’m _so_ sorry—”

“Hey.” Patrick shifts to dislodge Pete from where he’s wedged against him, so that he can see him. “Stop it. Look how it turned out. Stop it. If you’d figured it out sooner, we might not have Tennyson. It happened just the way it was supposed to happen.”

Pete reaches out a hand to cup Patrick’s cheek. He says achingly, “You’ve always been the most wonderful person to me.”

Patrick stares at him. Then Patrick hands him the joint. “Finish it,” he says, and slides down between Pete’s legs.

“Oh,” says Pete, his eyes huge in the firelight. “You don’t have to—”

“Keep quiet,” Patrick says, unzipping Pete’s jeans efficiently. “And don’t be sad. I don’t give sad head.”

“But sad head used to be a—” Pete gives a satisfying gasp when Patrick gets his mouth around him, his voice goes all breathy and delicious when he finishes, “A specialty of mine, oh, fuck, Patrick.”

Patrick slants a glance upward, because he knows Pete loves to watch. And he is watching, rapt.

“You have no idea how good you look when you do that,” Pete whispers.

Patrick’s got kind of an idea, judging by the evidence in his mouth. He sucks until Pete is fully hard, until the joint’s been finished and Pete’s hands are caught in Patrick’s hair. Pete tries to be polite about these things, but Patrick thinks he hasn’t done his job right if Pete doesn’t pull his hair at least once.

“Oh, Jesus, just like that,” Pete is babbling, “you’re so good, do it just like that, I’m so close,” and his voice is pitched low, quiet, just for them, a frequency Patrick picks up under the forest sounds and the blood rushing in his ears. Pete’s hands twist hard in Patrick’s hair and his hips jerk, choking Patrick momentarily, and then Patrick hums. He always thinks that maybe he should experiment with pitch, figure out the ideal humming note for a Pete Wentz orgasm, but he suspects the answer to the experiment would be: _doesn’t fucking matter_. Pete groans and drops his head back and comes.

Sometimes Patrick tries to remember the blowjobs he gave when he was younger, to people who weren’t Pete. He remembers mainly a feeling of not being sure he got the fucking point. Like, he got the sought-for _biological_ response but he was never sure if he’d actually achieved what he really was supposed to achieve, he just always felt slightly out-of-step, outside looking in, even when it was actually happening to him. He never feels that way with Pete, ever. He feels like he gets the point of the entire fucking _universe_ when he’s with Pete.

Pete kisses him, clumsy and greedy, and gasps between gulps, “You’re so good—you’re so good—I love you—” and Patrick’s life is perfection.

“No sad head,” he says, and Pete shakes his head and kisses him frantically and says, “Never— _never_ —”

“Never,” Patrick agrees, and kisses Pete with no uncertainty, the anti- of a Schrodinger Patrick.

***

“We’re not going to fit,” Patrick whispers, standing outside the back of the Range Rover. Tennyson is starfished inside, and somehow Pete thinks they’re going to fit in there with him. And the dog.

“We’re going to fit,” Pete hisses. “Bella, you’ve got to go sleep in the backseat.”

Bella gives him an offended look.

“You’ll be _fine_ ,” Pete insists, tugging on her collar.

Bella is extremely indignant as Pete pulls her out of the back and then into the seat. He closes the back door and comes back around to where Patrick is standing. Bella pokes her head over the backseat to watch the rest of the proceedings curiously.

“He takes up all the space,” Patrick remarks. “How did we used to sleep four of us in a van? Just one Tennyson takes up all the space.”

“A Tennyson is like a goldfish,” Pete says. “He’ll take up all the space we give him.” Pete leans in to nudge gently at Tennyson, this way and that, and Tennyson makes a sleepy protest but does curl up into a smaller ball at his father’s encouragement.

Patrick regards the cleared space dubiously. “Okay, we’re still not going to fit in there.”

Pete crawls out and gestures. “Get in.”

“And where are you sleeping?”

“Get in,” Pete repeats, with a more emphatic gesture.

Patrick sighs and climbs into the back next to Tennyson. It’s a tight squeeze but he’s slept in worse. He looks back at Pete. “Again, where are _you_ sleeping?”

And then Pete gleefully clambers on top of Patrick.

“Oof,” says Patrick, as Pete’s knee finds his kidney.

“Sorry, sorry,” Pete whispers, Tennyson stirring fitfully next to them, “just…move like…no, you’re too—your _elbow_ —okay. That’s good.”

They do, indeed, fit. It’s the way Pete does puzzles, jamming pieces in where they don’t belong and shrugging and saying, _good enough_. They fit like that. Patrick tries to find a place to slip his glasses where they won’t be destroyed.

“Good,” Pete whispers, and nuzzles at Patrick’s skin. “This is good, right?”

“You know, I really thought the Pete-Wentz-finds-incredibly-uncomfortable-places-for-me-to-sleep portion of my life was over,” replies Patrick.

Pete laughs against him, burying his snorting into Patrick’s chest. “You’re the one who came up with camping as an activity.”

“That was Tennyson, actually.”

“It was a good idea,” Pete says.

From where he’s tucked in, Patrick has a blurry view of the star-spangled sky out the back window, and it’s incredibly pretty, so maybe he understands a little why people go camping sometimes. And they had a delightful evening and his Wentzes were bright and happy so, yeah, Patrick is pro-camping, even with this ridiculous sleeping arrangement.

“Not bad,” he allows. “Would have been better with a tent.”

“We’ll practice the tent for next time.”

“Next time?” says Patrick.

“Mmm,” Pete confirms. “Hey, Patrick?”

Patrick is reminded so strongly of all the other times they’ve curled up together in the back of a vehicle, other people sleeping soundly next to them, while Pete whispered through the darkness, _Hey, Patrick?_ and Patrick would turn to him, would say, _yeah, what’s up, I’m not sleeping_ , no matter if he had been, and would listen to him, the barely-there wisp of his words, through the insomniac night and into the dawn, Pete weaving fairy tales and spinning fantasies, all about a superstar future, conquering the world, number one albums and songs on the radio, all of these promises spilling out of Pete’s lips, and Patrick used to listen to him and think, _He’s fucking out of his mind, but he’s cute_.

Patrick has to take a breath to stop the world from tipping around him, the past and the present colliding so dizzily he almost can’t tell one from the other, and he wonders about the potency of that weed. He manages to respond, “Yeah?”

“I know you like to do this for me, this whole adventure thing, and I love it so much, and I didn’t want to steal your thunder, but I do want to say…Happy Father’s Day. This was your day, too, and we’ll do something perfect for you tomorrow.”

“Oh,” says Patrick, caught by surprise, even more off-balance now, vaguely embarrassed. “You don’t have to—”

“Shut up, Patrick.” Pete’s voice is a breath in his ear. “This is your day, too. Happy Father’s Day.”

Patrick feels ridiculous – this is decidedly not his day – but Bella saves him from having to come up with a response by leaping over the backseat, determined to sleep in the back with them, and Pete starts hissing reproachments at her but she negotiates space and everybody settles back down and Patrick finds he can’t stop laughing.

“It’s not funny,” Pete grumbles, huffing, “the dog has no discipline, she’s got all the space around our feet, I can’t even move my legs.”

Patrick tries to muffle his laughter against Pete’s neck, tries to catch his breath.

“Oh, I’m glad you think this is hilarious,” Pete says.

“It’s just—what if you were—actually—taller?” Patrick manages, and dissolves into laughter again.

“ _Exactly_. Bella’s lucky we’re so fucking short.” Pete glares at Bella.

Patrick feels Bella’s tail thump against his legs. She doesn’t seem repentant.

“Oh, stop it,” Patrick says, mostly recovered from his laughing fit, feeling fond and indulgent over everything. “It’s not like we were getting a good night’s sleep anyway, the dog is hardly the major issue, and you’re always sulking over how Bella prefers to sleep with Tennyson.”

“I guess,” Pete agrees grudgingly, and settles against Patrick.

“Go to sleep,” Patrick says softly, and sweeps his hand in small circles on Pete’s back. “Do you think you’ll sleep?” Again there’s that déjà vu, so strong and deep.

Pete whispers, “Someday, Trick, I’m going to make you a star. We’ll walk red carpets and play sold-out arenas and all of the kids’ll shout the songs back to you.”

Patrick chuckles – he is not alone in the nostalgia – and holds Pete closer. “Tell me more,” he replies.

“We’ll fall in love and raise a really great kid together and you’ll tell me all the time how great I am in bed.”

“Well, now you’re just being ridiculous,” murmurs Patrick, pressing his nose into Pete’s hair.

“We’re going to have so much fun, you and me, Trick.” Pete breathes for a second, then repeats, “ _So_ much fun.”

“That one I always believed,” Patrick says.

***

Patrick wakes in the morning to the back of the car completely empty. He sits up, momentarily disoriented, fumbling around for the glasses he stored the night before, and then he locates Pete and Tennyson, sitting around the burned-out remains of last night’s campfire. They’re throwing a stick for Bella, who is playing fetch enthusiastically.

Patrick manages to get out of the car. He feels stiff and sore in a million different places. He’s clearly getting too old to sleep with a bunch of people in the back of a car. He stumbles over to Pete and Tennyson and sinks onto a log, yawning.

“Good morning, Patrick,” Tennyson says cheerfully.

“I thought you’d sleep later,” Pete remarks.

Pete and Tennyson are not exactly early risers but they look like morning people next to Patrick. Patrick is noncommunicative before coffee. He waves his hand around.

Pete grins at him and gives him a quick kiss.

“Patrick, we’ve got a _surprise_!” Tennyson exclaims.

“You’ve what?” asks Patrick stupidly. He really needs coffee. Whose idea was camping, anyway?

Pete beams at him and Tennyson leaps up and runs to the car and Patrick tips his head, what is _happening_.

Then Tennyson’s back, with a bright purple gift bag with metallic black spiders spangled across it, with crumpled tissue paper spilling out of it. “Sorry,” Tennyson says as he presents it to Patrick, “it’s the only gift bag we could find in the house.”

Patrick looks from the bag to Tennyson and then to Pete. “What is this?”

“Open it,” Pete says.

“Open it,” Tennyson echoes, and bounces as he shoves the gift bag closer to Patrick.

Patrick doesn’t know what else to do, so he reaches into the tissue paper and pulls out a book. A scrapbook, apparently. The front cover has “HAPPY FATHER’S DAY” written on it in purple glitter.

Tennyson explains, “We didn’t want to steal your thunder yesterday when you were focused on giving Dad his gift so we saved your gift until today.”

“You… What?” Patrick stares at Tennyson, at his messy hair sticking up all over his head, at his serious golden eyes. Tennyson has Pete’s eyes but a more solemn version, less flashy and more serious, old gold eyes, Patrick thinks of them, ancient amber.

Tennyson smiles and smiles at him and leans over to open the book’s cover.

He’s written on the first page, in his ever-improving careful block letters. These, too, remind Patrick of Pete, he can see how they’re going to develop into Pete’s slapdash all-caps. _For MY Patrick_ , Tennyson has written. _Thanks 4 being a great DAD!! Love, Your Poet Robert Frost (Tennyson)_. And a smiley face.

Patrick stares at this for a very long time and not because he hasn’t had coffee yet but because he’s worried he’s going to burst into tears. “ _Tennyson_ ,” he chokes out finally, and reaches out to pull him roughly in, up against him, kissing his dear head.

“You haven’t even seen it yet,” Tennyson says, squirming away from him. He sits beside him and turns the pages of the book.

Patrick is baffled, because the book is full of pictures, from Father’s Day outings past, and Patrick is in every single picture. It starts at the beginning, with the first Father’s Day. A picture of him making a sandcastle for Tennyson on the beach, before Tennyson even knew how to walk, Patrick’s face the picture of concentration, Tennyson sitting beside him in the wet sand and reaching for the tower with a chubby baby hand. A picture of Patrick cross-legged on the beach blanket, Tennyson cradled in his lap and waving a yellow shovel. Pete must have taken the picture, and Patrick is smiling for it. Tennyson is looking straight at the camera but pouting in that way he used to have whenever they asked him to smile for the camera. There’s another picture that is not posed, Tennyson with a handful of sand grinning up at Patrick, who’s leaned toward him, smiling, reaching for him. And there’s a selfie, Pete’s handiwork again, their heads tipped close together on the blanket, while Tennyson is an out-of-focus force between them lunging for the phone.

Patrick stares. He does not remember these pictures being taken. His pictures of this beach outing were entirely focused on Pete and Tennyson. In his head there are a million photographs of Pete with Tennyson and he is the omniscient point-of-view narrator hovering above their action.

The first Father’s Day gives way to the second Father’s Day, when Patrick took them to a farm, and again Patrick is in every picture, carefully supervising Tennyson as he reaches to pet a baby goat, holding him as they regard something with identical expressions of distaste, leaning back against a picnic bench with Tennyson knocked out, sound asleep on his shoulder. Patrick is smiling for the camera again in that picture, a wry little smirk, and it makes him wonder what Pete had just said to him, it makes him wonder how many pictures like this exist where it’s obvious how in love Patrick was, with _both_ of them, how much everyone noticed while Patrick was living in some weird edited version of the world where no one ever saw him.

There are pictures from literally every Father’s Day, and they’re all of Patrick with Tennyson, and he doesn’t get it, he’s bewildered, he doesn’t remember any of this being about him, doesn’t remember being such an active participant, but also, at the same time, as he flips the pages, it all seems _right_. Pete’s right about Schrodinger Patrick, Patrick thinks. He makes no sense and all the sense all at once.

“How…” he starts. “Where…”

“Do you like it?” asks Tennyson eagerly.

“Tennyson.” Patrick looks at him and leaks tender, aching love _everywhere_ , it’s a godawful mess, he can’t help it. “This is the best gift I have ever, ever gotten in my entire life.”

Tennyson looks very pleased with himself. “I did, like, the whole thing. Dad was basically useless.”

“It’s great,” Patrick manages. “You’re great.”

“Yup,” Tennyson agrees easily. “Dad promised we could go somewhere and get doughnuts for breakfast. Like, take-out, because of quarantine. Can we go?”

And just like that, Tennyson is off, into their day, heart-clenching book left to the old people to worry over.

Patrick looks at Pete and doesn’t know what to say.

Pete smiles at him and says gently, “Come on, let’s get you coffee.”

***

Patrick still doesn’t know what to say after the coffee, though. He lets Pete drive, and Pete and Tennyson keep up steady chatter, and Patrick sits and looks at his book. He might never stop looking at this book.

That night Pete Facetimes Brendon and Tennyson tells him all about their camping trip and Patrick tries to think of something to make for dinner and finally Pete says, “Fuck it, let’s just have ice cream,” and makes them sundaes. There’s a fight about whether Tennyson’s time in the pool qualifies as an adequate substitute for a bath and there’s another fight about how early Pete wants Tennyson to go to bed and that fight ends abruptly when Tennyson passes out because he’s _exhausted_ and Pete comes downstairs and collapses onto the couch, also clearly exhausted.

Patrick is curled up looking through the book again.

Pete looks over at him. “You know,” he says thoughtfully, “you are not a permanent guest in the Wentz family household. You know that, right? It’s the _Stump-Wentz_ household, we are _all_ the family, you’re in it with us, we are your family and you are our family, it’s all one family here. I should have been getting you Father’s Day gifts all along. It’s another thing I’m sorry it took me so long to do.”

Patrick turns the page, looks at the photos from last year’s outing, hoverboards on a golf course. Tennyson and Pete excelled at it and Patrick sat in a cart and watched them in bemusement. That’s how he remembers it but this book has so many pictures of Patrick enjoying the day with them. There’s a picture of Tennyson tucked up close to him while Patrick worriedly lets him drive the cart a few feet. A picture of Tennyson standing next to the cart on his hoverboard, laughing at something Patrick’s saying to him. A picture of the two of them at ice cream afterwards, Tennyson tired and filthy and Patrick leaned down a bit, smiling close to Tennyson’s ear.

Patrick says softly, “But Tennyson did this. No offense, but…it means a little more that it came from Tennyson.”

“That’s true,” Pete agrees. “You’d never have believed me if I tried to convince you Father’s Day was your day, too. It had to come from Tennyson for you to get it.”

Patrick closes the book and looks reflectively at Pete, sprawled on the couch. He’s wrinkled and messy, in that delectable way that only Pete Wentz manages to be in Patrick’s experience. He says solemnly, “Thanks for letting me out of my box.”

Pete grins at him. “Get over here, Trick-o-matic, and let me give you an extremely lazy blowjob, I mean, I swear, I’m barely going to move I’m so tired.”

“How can I resist such an offer?” Patrick asks drily, but he gets up anyway. “You’ve really changed my mind about what a big deal sex is, like, A+, five stars.” Patrick drops on top of Pete, as Pete laughs and laughs at him, and it sounds like pure joy, pure _luck_ , Patrick can’t imagine happiness greater than this, and to be thinking that while the world falls apart all around them, well, Patrick is surrounded by privilege and he’s so incredibly grateful for it. Maybe if his world is just this and this and this, then, Patrick’s so goddamn lucky he can’t stand it. “Five stars,” Patrick says again, soft and fond, and scrapes his tongue along Pete’s perpetual stubble.

“Ten out of ten, would fuck again,” Pete rejoins in the same tone, catching his hand up in Patrick’s hair. He brushes a kiss along Patrick’s temple. “Happy Father’s Day, Trick.”

And Patrick, feeling warm and safe and oh-so-lucky, doesn’t protest. Patrick thinks of the book he left on the coffee table and _feels_ it, every inch of their family, every minute of their life together. He thinks to himself, for the first time ever, _Happy Father’s Day, Patrick_. And he says, “Happy Father’s Day to you, too.”

Pete says, “Next year we’ll go to Hawaii, pick an activity we’ll both love.”

Patrick smiles. Patrick says, “Doesn’t matter what we do, as long as it’s together.”

“For sure,” Pete says. “One hundred percent. You’re never getting rid of us.”

And Patrick says, “Good.”


End file.
